Drawing with Light (7 page)

And Rachel's gone, just like that! All her attention's focused on Luke, now. I don't mind, not really. I know that's how it is with Rach. I look at them, arms round each other. It's sweet, really. They've been going out together since the beginning of term, on and off. It's on, at the moment.

Still no message from Seb.

I could phone him?

Better to wait, though.

I'm on the way home when the text finally comes.

I passed! x

One kiss!

Well done!
I text back. I think for a second. Add a kiss from me.

I've got as far as the caravan-site gate when the next text bleeps.

Pick you up at 7?

I think quickly. No way I want Dad and Cassy to know about Seb. Not yet.

Meet u top of lane near bus stop
.

His reply comes straight back.

OK. xx

I save all his texts, so I can look at them again. Three kisses in total. Three text kisses, like promises of real ones.

It takes me ages to decide what to wear. In the end, I just wear jeans, and my black top. I wash my hair, and dry it with Cassy's hairdryer. I borrow a lipgloss from Kat's old make-up bag, the stuff she left behind, even though I kind of know Seb won't notice stuff like make-up. It won't make any difference to him.

‘We're going to see a film,' I say, in a generalising sort of way to Cassy. I don't specify who the
we
is, so I know she'll imagine it's Rachel and me. I don't want to actually lie to her. ‘I'll get a lift home afterwards, so don't wait up.'

She's only half listening. She nods. ‘Have fun.'

I'm nervous, waiting at the top of the lane. I'm too early. Every time a car comes along the main road my heart starts to skitter again, in case it's him. Then I start thinking he's not going to show up. But dead on seven, a silver Renault slows down and then brakes, and I see Seb's anxious face peering through the window. He looks so serious it makes me laugh.

He leans across the front seat to open the door for me. For a second, neither of us knows quite what to say.

‘You all right?' I say. ‘Why's the windscreen all misted up?'

‘I can't find the demister thing,' Seb says. ‘It's a bit different, driving all by myself. In the dark.'

I laugh. ‘Are you sure you passed? Is it safe?'

He looks indignant. ‘Yes. Of course.'

‘Only joking. I'd be terrified, I think. Your mum must trust you, though. Lending you her car and everything.'

‘She's dead pleased with me. For passing something, for once. Proving my dad wrong.'

I try turning the temperature dial. Between us, we work out how to get warm air on the screen. ‘That's better.'

‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvre,' Seb says out loud. He pulls away from the kerb.

I choose us some music from the stack of CDs in the glove compartment. Not bad, seeing as they're his mum's choice! It starts to feel fun, us driving along together towards town. It begins to rain: soft, light drizzle. Seb has a momentary panic over getting the windscreen wipers going and they suddenly flip into extra-fast mode, beating like crazy, and it makes me laugh and laugh.

‘Stop it!' Seb says, when we get to the edge of the town. ‘I've got to concentrate. And you've got to help me find a place to park. I'm not very good at that, yet. It'll have to be a really big space.'

It takes about ten goes to get the car in the space and close enough to the kerb. I haven't laughed so much in ages.

At the cinema, Seb pays for both tickets. Rachel would say that definitely makes this a proper date. I offer him the money for mine anyway. It's not fair, expecting him to pay when he doesn't have a job or anything.

‘It's OK,' Seb says. ‘My mum's paying for us both.'

‘Did you tell her about me, then?'

‘Of course! Why wouldn't I? And anyway, we're celebrating my test, remember?'

Seb chooses the film. Spanish, with subtitles, an art-house film set in the Spanish Civil War that he seems to know all about. I don't really mind what we see, as long as it isn't horror.

‘What've you got against horror?' Seb asks.

‘I think about it too much afterwards. Can't get it out of my head. My imagination goes into overdrive. That's if it's good horror. If it's bad, it's just silly.'

‘One of the best films I've ever seen is this really old one,
Don't Look Now
.'

‘I've seen it too. That last scene, in Venice, with the red mac . . . and that creepy blind woman.'

And that amazing sex scene
, I suddenly remember. Donald what's his name and Julie Christie when she was young, and the really slow, tender way they touch each other, making love, sort of soothing each other through their grief about the dead child. It was like I suddenly understood something, watching that. About making love, and how beautiful it could be, and how it could connect two people together at this really deep level. But I know all this sounds corny and there's no way I'm about to say any of it to Seb.

I can hardly focus on the film, at first, I'm so aware of sitting next to him. His shoulder's next to mine, his leg right up close to my leg, so that I can feel the warmth of it even through my jeans and his. We're at the end of a row, about halfway back. I can see his face, sideways on: his thin aquiline nose, and the dark stubble round his chin. He's wearing his black wool jacket with the collar turned up. About five minutes in, he leans forward and starts struggling to take the jacket off, so I help him pull it off one shoulder, and then as he settles back, his hand sort of touches mine, and then he holds my hand properly, and all I'm thinking about for ages is whether it's all sweaty or too cold. But then I start to relax; the film really gets going and I just sink into the story.

Which is a kind of horror after all. Horrible and beautiful: one inside the other. Unbearable, because of what humans are capable of, and totally compelling, because of the way it shows a child finding her way out of the horror by creating her own imaginative world.

Seb holds on to my hand, all the way to the end.

He looks at me. ‘All right?' he whispers, and I nod.

We stay in our seats until the last credits have rolled. We both want to see who wrote the music score. We're almost the last people to leave. I've got tears in my eyes, from that final scene where the girl is deep in the labyrinth, saving her baby brother. I'm too choked up to talk.

Seb doesn't speak either. I like that. I don't want to start dissecting everything straight away. I want to stay in the spell the story casts over you, when you're watching something brilliant. It's nice to think he's the same.

It's still raining when we make our way out of the cinema on to the dark street. We shelter under my umbrella, which means we have to walk close together. Everything feels amazing: the film, and Seb and me walking through the wet streets together, the street lights reflected in the puddles, the starry dazzle of car headlights.

‘What shall we do now?' Seb says, when we're back in the car. ‘Do you need to get straight home?'

‘Can we go to Moat House?' I say. ‘I want to see it in the dark, when there's no one there.'

Seb laughs. ‘OK, if you really want to. Why not?'

By the time we get to the field gate and park the car the rain has stopped. The clouds are starting to clear; every so often an edge of silver moon appears. We pick our way across the sopping-wet grass.

‘Have you got a key?' Seb whispers.

‘It's under the stone near the door,' I whisper back.

‘Why are we whispering?'

‘I don't know! Because it's so quiet?'

‘Or we'll wake the house ghost.'

‘Don't talk about ghosts!'

We push the heavy door open. It creaks, like a stage sound effect. Seb makes a silly ghost
whoooo
noise, and I giggle.

‘It's your house,' Seb says. ‘You'd better show me round.'

‘You've already had the grand tour, from Kat,' I say.

‘That was ages ago,' Seb says. ‘Everything's different now.'

There's still no electricity. With the roof on, it's darker than ever. We have to prop the front door open to let in the scraps of moonlight.

I take Seb's hand and pull him after me, describing each room as if it's finished. ‘This magnificent fireplace is one of the original features of the house, dating from the fifteenth century. It has been restored by master craftsmen. And this kitchen is state-of-the-art twenty-first-century design, with huge French windows opening out on to the gardens and the river.'

I lead him to the bottom of the scaffolding, where the staircase will be.

‘This takes us to the bedrooms,' I say. I stop. Seb's standing right behind me, so close I can feel his breath on my neck. Even in the dark, I know he is smiling. For a second, I think he's going to kiss me.

Want him to kiss me.

Everything seems to shift.

My world tilts.

‘Well?' Seb says. ‘Aren't we going up to see? The view must be amazing from up there.'

‘We would,' I say. ‘But there's no stairs!'

‘No problem!' Seb has already started to climb. His voice comes from above me. ‘There are ladders all the way up the scaffolding. It's perfectly easy.'

I think:
Dad. Hard hats. Safety rules.

But I'm already following him up, climbing the ladders, hands holding tight either side, feeling with my feet for each rung, up to the first platform, and the next, and then finally out on to the wooden boards under the newly mended roof with its big skylight windows. In the dark, it's easier, somehow, to forget how high up we are.

We push open the nearest skylight and stick our heads out. Above us, the dome of sky is a paler kind of dark. Big raggedy clouds race across the moon. In one clear diamond of sky there are stars.

I can see Seb's face properly now, in the moonlight. His eyes are shining. He looks different. Far beneath us the dark strip of the river winds through the silvered fields between the willow trees. I can hear the river, or is it the wind in the trees?

‘Wow!' Seb says.

‘This will be my room, up here.'

‘Unbelievable!' Seb says. ‘It's magic.'

The air's cold. We pull ourselves back in, and shut the skylight again. I shiver.

‘Come here, you.' Seb pulls me towards him.

I'm shaking all over.

He puts his arms round me, and I hold on to him, and that's where we have our first kiss, up on the scaffolding under the wooden rafters of Moat House.

9

Wednesday after school, Rachel and I go to see her mum's friend Polly about jobs. Polly has this posh shop selling designer jewellery and hand-painted silk scarves, but she wants us to work on her stall at the Christmas market.

‘It's loads of fun,' Polly says. ‘There's a great atmosphere. If you two can do the stall every afternoon after school for the ten days of the market, that'll give me time to keep things running at the shop. Seven pounds an hour. What do you think?'

‘Seven pounds each?' Rachel asks.

‘Yes, darling! I know it's not much, but it's all I can afford.'

Rachel looks at me. Seven pounds is much more than we expected. ‘That's OK,' Rachel says. ‘We'll do it, won't we, Em?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Thanks. Great.'

‘So you'll start next Thursday, soon as you can get there after school, yes? Go and have a look: they're setting the stalls up in the square near the church.'

Christmas lights criss-cross the streets, ready for the grand opening of the Christmas market when the mayor will switch them on. The square's busy with workmen putting up the wooden huts in rows, like a traditional German
Christkindlmarkt.

Rachel's already looking at her watch. ‘Sorry, Em, got to go. I told Luke I'd meet him at five.' She stops to check her reflection in the shoe-shop window on the corner.

‘You look fine,' I say. ‘Go on, then. Have a nice time!'

She gives me a quick hug. ‘Love you!'

‘Love you too!'

I watch her skip down River Street. She's the happiest she's been for ages.

Even by myself it's fun being in town, now everything's getting Christmassy. There are trees up in some of the windows already. The clothes shops all have party dresses on display. It's
soooo
much better than trudging across a muddy field to a cold caravan.

It starts to rain again. I cut back through the square and along past the covered market to the library. I might persuade Cassy to come with me for a cup of tea. I can say hello to Bob and Mattie on the way.

Only they aren't in their usual spot, in the little recess next to the big doors into the shopping precinct. Mattie's old blanket is there, folded neatly, but there's no sign of her or Bob. I go up the escalator to the library on the second floor. Cassy's not at the counter or the information point. I wander around for a while to see if she's shelving books or sorting out the computers. The library had a makeover in the summer: comfy seats, carpets, new computers and loads of CDs and DVDs you can borrow for a whole week for less than it costs for one night at the rental place where Amanda works. It's buzzing with people now you're actually allowed to talk in there.

Anita's at the computer desk. She smiles at me. ‘Hello, Emily!'

‘Can I go on the computers?' I ask her.

‘Help yourself,' she says. ‘There's one free in the corner. I'll just log you on.'

‘Is Cassy around?' I ask.

‘I don't think she's got back from her appointment yet. But I'll check for you.'

What appointment would that be, exactly? My mind starts racing. Doctor? Hospital? Perhaps there really is something wrong with Cassy. While I'm on the computer I type in some symptoms, just to see what comes up.
Tiredness. No energy. Lack of appetite . . .